A cloud is a group of computing devices connected through a real-time communication network, such as the internet, that are organized to perform network based services. The cloud may employ the use of physical computing devices or virtual devices. The resources of the computing devices are shared to maximize efficiencies. The cloud can operate to run programs remotely on client devices, store an enormous amount of data, perform complex tasks, and other functions.
A cloud can be set up manually. In such a case, the user can take all of the raw packages, such as operating systems, program instructions, or downloaded information, from a repository, like OpenStack. Then the user can build and install the packages as desired. Next, the user can install and configure the packages on the correct computing device and then prepare those computing devices for operation in the cloud.